What's for Breakfast

Our standard Green Smoothie Recipe:
1 orange
1 banana
a couple of handfuls of spinach
ice
1/2 cup water

Eliza loves them - I'm still trying to convince the other kids!

Honey's Bread Recipe

This is a recipe that my sister-in-law, Honey gave me. It is my favorite of the recipes, so far. I have one left to try (sorry I'm taking so long, Ricki!) - Ricki's recipe calls for potato flour which I haven't found any that is without questionable ingredients, so I think I'm going to make my own. But that probably won't get done until after the move!

Famous Andersen Whole Wheat Bread 4 loaves

5 cups really warm water

2/3 c honey

3 T yeast

3 T lemon juice or white vinegar

3 - 4 cups whole wheat flour

Mix well and let rise once (Only about double) Then add:

1 or 2 T salt

1/3 - 2/3 c oil

10 - 12 c more of whole wheat flour

1 1/2 c white flour (optional)

Mix well , cover and let rise.

Add more flour as needed to make consistency to handle. Grease four loaf pans. Form dough into four loaves. Let rise to top of loaf pans as oven pre-heats to 350 degrees. Bake 35 minutes. Remove from pans and cover with bath towel. (That makes top crust soft - or you can brush with butter).
*I personally prefer a bit of a harder crust, so I would bake mine for an additional 10 minutes and leave off the towel. The first time I made this I halved the recipe so I could fit it all in the kitchen aid, when I made it yesterday I made the whole recipe, but still kneaded it in the kitchen aid in halves, and then clumped it all together and finished kneading it on the counter. Enjoy!

A Weekend Full of Cherries!

How long does it take to pit 25 lbs of cherries?
Way longer than I thought it would!

Luckily I had some great helpers!

Making cherry juice.

The winning recipe from this past weekend, Jason says this is the best one since the PS (post-sugar) era began:

Pear and Cherry Cobbler

2 lbs pears, peeled and sliced

2 cups pitted cherries

3 TBSP lemon juice

1/2 cup honey

2 TBSP cornstarch mixed with 2 TBSP water

2 TBSP butter

1 recipe whole wheat and honey topping (see below)

Preheat oven to 400 place the pears in a shallow 3 qt baking dish. Stir in the lemon juice, honey, and cornstarch mixture. Dot with pieces of the butter. Prepare topping and drop by spoonfuls onto fruit mixture, leaving space in between– it will spread a bit and some gaps are desirable to see the fruit peeking through. Bake for 30 to 35 minues or until topping is well browned. Serve warm or cool, with vanilla ice cream or milk, morning or night.

Topping:

1 1/4 cups oats

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

1/2 cup cold butter

1/2 cup milk

1/4 cup honey

In a bowl, stir together whole wheat flour, baking powder, salt, ground cinnamon, and nutmeg. With a pastry blender, cut in cold butter or margarine until well blended. Stir together milk and honey; add to bowl, stirring until combined. Recipe adapted from here.

Father and Son go Camping

Jason and Joshua headed to the Fathers and Sons camp out this past weekend aided by the xtracycle. It was about 35 miles each way, a little longer on the way there because of a wrong turn). Jason said it was one of the coolest things he has ever done!

Joshua's got his book ready for the long ride
(3 hours there and about 4 hours on the way home)

I cannot imagine pulling that load up any hill, let alone the hills I know he had to go up!
Jason, you are way cooler than any rockstar - thanks for all the great times these past 9 years.
Happy Anniversary - I love you!

Moving to Whidbey Island!

These are Jason's Father's Day gifts, a couple of books about keeping chickens and bees - we are planning a move to an acreage on Whidbey Island. Jason will commute to his job in Everett, it's a short ferry ride and he'll have about 5 miles on either side of the ferry. We are excited about the move, it really seems ideal. But if it's not everything we dreamed, we are only renting and can move back to the mainland next year!

We have made some good friends in Everett this past year, hopefully we'll be back often enough to maintain those friendships and we hope to have lots of visitors at the new place!

My Happy Man

Jason got up at 4:30 this morning so he could ride his bike 125 miles and be back to take the kids to the pool this afternoon. He's the best!

Now he has a full belly and he is one happy guy!

Sun Bonnet

Check out Danielle's sweet pattern-making skills here.